Decommissioning Kewaunee Power could take decades, $1B

8:18 AM,
Oct. 28, 2012

Dominion Energy's Kewaunee Power Station in the town of Carlton is scheduled to shut down in spring 2013.

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It will be decades before the Kewaunee Power Station site is returned to pastoral Lake Michigan shoreline, and even then its used nuclear fuel might remain.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has strict rules regarding the decommissioning of nuclear reactors, but within those rules is a lot of flexibility regarding when some steps are completed. Overall, a reactor owner has 60 years to complete the process.

Dominion Resources Inc. announced on Monday that it would shut down the one-reactor Kewaunee Power Station in spring 2013. It cited the low cost of producing electricity and ...